Blog: Capturing My Attention

Okay, it's done. The revised, revised website design. That didn't take long at all because I suddenly had a very clear vision of what I wanted to do and for once I was able to turn that mental image into something that translated nicely onto the "page."

If you were a visitor of my website "in the olden days" (which is to say all of last year) you may recognize the texture of this new background. Its predecessor was created using golden hues, all warm and inviting. (And gold and brown aren't even my favorite colors. Not even close.) My "signature" background graphic took me about forty eleven thousand hours to create a couple of years ago. But those colors were no longer working for me. You can imagine, though, how hard it was to have my site's image shift so drastically as to ignore all the complexity of that background image with all its delicious textures, to suddenly sport a couple of rows of brightly colored flowers on a white background.

Every time I logged on I cringed. Not that it was bad, it just wasn't reflecting my vision. Which is so important when such a big part of the face of your business is entwined with the design of your website. I knew I had to update it this morning, while responding to an email exchange begun a while back with someone who is not familiar with this website. I was about to include a link to my site and I couldn't do it. I didn't want that to be the first impression this woman had of my website. That's a sure sign you have to make some changes.

Once I decided to make the changes, I sat down and took my much-beloved graphic and threw some color in the mix. I updated it using the colors of my early January palette and then when I was happy with the results, created a new, less-verbose header for the site, and voila, the thing in my head is now looking back at me when I log on. The only hesitation I have is the choice of photos. I wanted to use something recent, but the latest batch of recent photos I have is from the four million I have from my trip to Toronto in November. Only most of them have goofy grins brought on by my attempt to stand up straight in the unexpected bursts of wind, or the cringing I did posing with a goofy hat on my head, knowing I cannot, do not, will not look good in a hat. And so I chose this picture taken the day I discovered the first snow of my 05-06 winter. It still makes me feel like an excited school child to discover the first flakes of snow. Which you might be able to see in my smile in this picture. I'll likely change the photo soon, though, if I can find one I like better.

None of that matters. I don't have flowers on my website anymore. (And for all the people saying "but flowers are pretty!" you're absolutely right. I love flowers. I have a dried bouquet of them hanging on my bedroom wall and I sometimes bend over and pick a bunch of wild ones just because they make me smile. I still don't want 'em on my website. Your website can have flowers if you like. And I'll bet they'll be pretty ones too.)

Now I'm happy to continue with my day, working on other people's websites and checking off the rest of the things on my list.